Pittswood Birds

The long sunny spells this morning made for a pleasant change from all the fog and gloom of recent visits, I even dusted off the camera for an outing  ;-)

Sunrise - nice to actually see it for once!

An enjoyable 4 hours were spent out on patch, visiting most parts of it and finding 42 bird species, which is about par for a December visit. I didn't find any new species for the December list, which was a bit disappointing as there are still a few that should visit here, Canada Goose and Lapwing being two.

Highlights from the walk were much as yesterday, the MUTE SWAN and KINGFISHER are becoming ever present on the Ornamental Lake, and today they were joined by a GREY HERON and a CORMORANT as well as the usual MOORHENS and MALLARDS.

I located the LONG TAILED TIT flock in the Scrubby Woods, and in doing so got to see the GOLDCRESTS, NUTHATCH, TREECREEPER and COAL TITS that invariably are to be seen with it, BULLFINCH and SISKIN were heard moving about, plus JAY, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and MISTLETHRUSH were all heard.

Two LITTLE OWLS were found today, one called from the large garden adjacent to the Greenhouse Grounds, while the other posed for a photo on the edge of the Greenhouse Copse.

Little Owl

Little Owl

3 MEADOW PIPITS flew up from the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, where a few BLACK HEADED GULLS had joined the ROOK and JACKDAW flock, no sign of any Common or Lesser Black backed Gulls for the months list though. The female KESTREL was hunting around the Greenhouse Grounds, and the regular DUNNOCKS, WRENS, ROBINS, BLACKBIRDS, SONGTHRUSH, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, PIED WAGTAILS, GREEN WOODPECKER, BLUE and GREAT TITS were all seen there.

Blue Tit

Robin